The cost of conventional energy sources has increased dramatically in the last few years, and the use of many conventional energy sources such as oil, coal and nuclear power has been demonstrated to be harmful to the environment.
Many clean alternative energy sources have been developed or proposed. Such sources include solar energy, geothermal energy, wind energy, hydroelectric energy, hydrogen reactors and fuel cells. However, many of these sources are either expensive (solar energy) or limited by geographical concerns (geothermal, wind and hydropower).
Other alternative energy sources make use of biomass. However, those systems often involve the production of a secondary product such as ethanol or involve combusting the materials. These methods suffer from problems including contamination of the environment and requiring the use of valuable farmland to produce biomass.
Accordingly, what is needed in the art is alternative systems to utilize waste biomass materials or naturally available biomass materials to produce heat or electricity.